Maine - "The Way Life Should Be"

Portland Head Light in Portland, Maine

I've been off the blog/social media radar the last week, partly due to being exhausted from our family road trip to Maine (8 very packed but fun-filled days) and partly due to attempting to catch up on laundry, cleaning, work, emails, SLEEP. Finally feeling back to normal, though I'm already looking forward to my next trip (the U.P. - this weekend!) I've got wanderlust, for sure.

Acadia National Park! (that's my brother :))

Have any of you been to Maine? I was there once before 7 years ago and liked it then, but this time I fell in love. It's definitely someplace I could picture myself living (Portland in particular). It is so full of beauty, between the rocky shoreline, historic lighthouses, hills and mountains galore, Acadia National Park, oh and the pretty wildflowers! And the food selections were right up my alley. People there seem to care about what they eat. The flatbread restaurant we ate at in Portland had all organic ingredients and they even milled their own wheat. And the salad was so fresh (with Maine blueberries, yum!) The farmers' market we went to in the little town of Union (where my grandpa grew up) was small but had so much variety, including a selection of flavored goat cheeses, yum! It was so charming, with live folk musicians and such a warm, invigorating community feel. And, again, everything was organic (there is only one organic vendor at our farmers market). I felt at home.

My grandpa's 80th birthday celebration/family reunion was a relaxed but memorable day. I got to meet so many extended family members and had some really great conversations. I met my great aunt Carol for the first time (my mom's middle-namesake) and I could have talked to her for hours! She is a brilliant lady, with a PhD in Genetics(!) She relived with me the ten years her and her hubby lived in a teepee when she was around my age(!) We talked nutrition lots, and I found out that her mother (my great-grandmother) got her degree in Nutrition at Cornell way back in the day.. amazing! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I hope to pursue a Masters degree in Nutrition once hubby is a professor :) SO neat to find this out about my great-grandmother.. It's like the passion got passed down. I felt an instant connection to this lady I had never had the chance to meet. I already knew my love for cooking was passed down through my grandma (who instilled it into my mom who instilled it in me), but turns out the roots are even deeper and richer.

Anyway, I did not expect to ramble so much in this post about such things but it was just too meaningful not to gush about. If you've thought about traveling to Maine, you should definitely go! I hope to return with Joel in the not-so-distant future, since he wasn't able to join us because of his summer teaching schedule (so sad). I'm SO looking forward to his incredibly crazy summer schedule to end.. this Fall should be pretty wonderful :)

and just like that, i have a garden.

my weekend was productive and fulfilling, despite having my hubby stolen by his final research paper (which he finished just before we went to see Radiohead live - woohoo!). on saturday, i headed to detroit's eastern market in detroit with an awesome co-worker and bought a crapload of fresh veggies, fruits, (organic and grass-fed!) cheeses, pickles, and most importantly all kinds of veggie implants to plant in our new garden! yup, one day last week i awoke to my landlord tilling the soil in the ugly, unused portion of our backyard to create a garden bed! guess i won't have to use these guys back there after all. 

i am sharing the garden space with my landlord and his wife but have plenty of room (about half) for my own plants. i finished planting everything yesterday morning and am now crossing my fingers that at least a couple of the plants produces something yummy.

do any of you garden? if so, i would love some tips. i really have no idea what i'm doing. the only experience i've had is with potted herbs, which i'm still doing (i love cooking with fresh herbs)! for reference, i planted eggplant, arugula, a few varieties of tomatoes, jalepenos, butternut squash, green beans and a few varieties of lettuces. a bit ambitious, i know, but i'm hoping it increases my chances of something growing! apparently the soil in our backyard isn't the greatest so hopefully that won't hinder them too much. i've had a dream of gardening for awhile now, but i was thinking it probably wouldn't happen until we had a place of our own, so this is pretty exciting. wish me luck! (or better yet, share some advice)!